Brazilian musicians face unfortunate stereotypes. Many people assume that great artists coming out of Brazil are inevitably going to create tropical sounds, perhaps with soft bossa inflections or hyper rhythmic samba percussion. Things get a bit more complicated when you consider the fact that many Brazilian musicians are proud of their heritage and love to incorporate that into their work. It’s difficult to draw the line between pandering to a tourist version of Brazilian music and making something truly heartfelt using those elements, without sounding like a sonic archivist.
Brazilian producer Carlos doesn’t have that problem at all. Sure, you can hear percussive and melodic elements on “Satisfação” that will automatically send you through a montage of famous Brazilian scenes, but that’s not everything that Carlos has in store for us on this track. There are some tropical inflections on the track, but he’s also able to house these elements in a trap beat, with enough modern hip-hop added to the production that it doesn’t sound out of place on the next mixtape about to drop on DatPiff.
Carlos is an enigmatic character from Rio De Janeiro. There’s not much info about the producer around the Internet, but he’s definitely someone making the rounds, both as a producer and DJ. He has put out some mixtapes and other loose tracks, as well as played in his native country. “Satisfação” makes the listener more curious. We like what we hear here, especially when his devotion to traditional sounds from his country is in service of modern, original composition.